


Requiem Letters

by Alenacantfly, Brona



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: I have a lot of Testament of Youth feelings, Kingsman AU, M/M, This should be a drabble but something went wrong, World War I
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-04-03 02:04:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4082521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alenacantfly/pseuds/Alenacantfly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brona/pseuds/Brona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy Unwin is on the frontline of World War I.  One day the letters to his one big love, Harry Hart, end suddenly and without a warning. Harry searches for another way to contact Eggsy, without knowing that every single letter becomes dangerous for Eggsy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Requiem Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3914638) by [Brona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brona/pseuds/Brona). 



“You look very worn out, Mr. Hart. Is everything alright?”

Harry flinched, as if he had been punched. The maid's voice had surprised him. To be honest, he didn't know how long he had been staring out of the window already; the firm construct of time and space had slipped through his hands some time ago.

“I,” he started with a calm voice and tried to sort out his thoughts and make some sense out of them. It took some time until he was in full control of his senses again. Harry broke away from the view of the window, turned his head to the door and looked into the maiden's face. She was young and could have been his daughter, but sorrow and war had left their traces even in her face. “I am just waiting for mail,” he said and his voice grew more quiet with every word.

The maid understood his sorrow, maybe better, than anybody else in the house. She couldn't afford the luxury of staring out of the window the whole day and waiting for a sign of life. But they shared the same fate. She was waiting for mail from the front line too. Her dark curls moved up and down, as she nodded a few times. Eyes full of this physical, dark sadness, that Harry saw every morning in the mirror.

When she didn't say anything he felt bad. He didn't like being the center of attention in this house. Behind his back many girls talked about him and his tight relationship with the neighbor boy. For many it simply was an odd friendship that had developed in this crazy times. As if the boy was the son Harry would never have. Others read between the lines and saw much more. This became obvious to him when he passed them in the corridors or in the garden, when they were hanging up laundry. The conversations died instantly. They did this whenever he disturbed their little, sworn in circle. But in the presence of those girls that had been reading him like an open book, the silence was suffocating. Only their eyes were speaking, dripping with disgust and accusation.

Harry focused the topic on her, to show her that his world didn't just consist of a few topics, which he could count on one hand. “When was the last time you have received mail from your fiance?,” he asked politely and plastered on a smile, which made him tired in seconds. An emotion that had become foreign to him.

“Oh,” the girl with the curls exclaimed and the exhaustion fell from her face like old paint. Her eyes started shining and he watched in joy, as she began shuffling her feet in excitement. “He wrote me three days ago and confirmed, that he is alright and that they are safe. If everything goes by plan he wil be able to come home for a few days at the end of the month. We want to use that time to marry, Mr. Hart.”

Harry had been wrong. His world did consist only of a few topics. Or rather: of Eggsy. He understood this as the maid spoke of a happiness he would never taste and in that moment it hit him more than any look out of the window.

“Three days ago,” was the only thing he said after a long silence. The fake smile on his lips, only his damp eyes showed his true feelings.

“When was the last time you have received mail from the font line?”, the girl asked. Harry had a feeling that she knew of his love, but didn't judge him. With sympathy and holding back she was the only one in the house, who kept asking about the boy and was happy with him, when mail arrived.

“A month ago,” he said, his voice rough, like it was about to break any moment. His whole life he had been accused of being a weak man. A teacher, that had escaped war and that rather barricaded himself in his house with his literature and music. Not a real man. _'Only women stay back when war breaks out,'_ the fat cook had declared loudly during picking apples. She hadn't cared that he had been able to hear every single word. For the people he was on one level with weakness. It was no secret, but he didn't allow himself to cry in the company of the maid. Harry rubbed his knuckles over his eyes, as if he was just tired, unbelievably tired.

“I,” he took a deep breath, "witnessed that he wrote his mother in between. Three times.” And not a single letter for him. Eggsy Unwin, the boy he loved more than anything, didn't gift him with a single line. “At least I know that he is alright. That is nice, yes”, he whispered. “But he doesn't answer me.” 

The maid kneaded her apron nervously and looked at him with wide eyes. “Maybe the letters got lost?” 

Maybe. The possibility was there. The war had swallowed many letters to loved ones in fights. But why should his letters to Eggsy disappear? All of them. That didn't make sense. “That's probably it,” he said numbly and rubbed his eyebrows, as if that could cure his migraine. “I think I'll lay down for a few hours.” 

It was noon, but she didn't say anything. Just an obedient, energetic nod, before she left the room with a basket full of dirty clothes and left him alone with his thoughts again. If they were birds, he would have opened the cage door and let them into freedom, to be finally free of all the noise in his head. 

Harry couldn't sleep. After turning from side to side for an hour, he found himself on his desk in front of the window to the yard. The sky was drenched in a deep blue. No clouds to be seen. A weather that was rare in this area of England. It urged the people outside, which enjoyed the sunny hours laughing and without sorrows. Harry Hart locked himself inside his room; he couldn't stand such a day, not if he couldn't share it with the boy he loved. 

The silver spoon made a clanking noise as it hit against the porcelain during stirring. He took a sip of his freshly brewed tea, before he reached for his quill and dipped it into the ink. As much as the pain of an missing answer consumed him, he couldn't break this ritual. While everyone the war left behind lived their lives as normally as possible, a part of his heart was at the front. And it had only taken a few days until Harry discovered that he couldn't live with only one half of his heart; he was only a shadown of himself. Functioning, but not living. The only time of the day he felt alive, was during the hours he spent writing Eggsy. 

_“The sky is wearing the colour of your eyes today. I wish I could take your hand, take you to the woods that belong to us alone to show it to you. I wish I could lay down with you between the trees and get lost in the blue of your eyes. An ocean, I would give my life to without hesitation. To never be seperated from you again._

_I am sick of the pity; one more word and I'll be sick, Eggsy. It feels bad. Because I am not the one deserving soothing words and sympathetic looks. You are the one seeing the cruelty of the human race with your own eyes. You are the one never coming to rest with the constant threat of death near you. Where ever you are, I hope you are fine. If you are feeling the misery weighing you down, remember hat you have my heart. If you break I am there. Let me carry you home if everything around you falls to pieces._

_I am waiting for you. For a single word from you, that won't let me forget that you are still breathing. I close my eyes and fell your chest by my side, rising and sinking in sleep. We had moments of peace - I found all of them in your arms. The world stopped when you were with me. Now, with you being so far away, every day passes in seconds. Only one heartbeat and a life is over._

_My thoughts are with you when I awake. My thoughts are with you when I fall asleep. The hours in between I fill with words to you, that will never pass my lips. Your memory still clings to them._

_Come back to me._

_In eternal love,_

_Harry.” ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original story has only three chapters, but I split the first chapter into two parts, so the translation may end up taking longer and being longer.


	2. Chapter 2

Whatever those feelings where, he couldn't name them as he saw Eggsy's mother in the yard. In her right hand: two letters, wearing her name – not Harry's.

“My son,” she said, as she stood standing in front of Harry, “Gary, you remember him, Mr. Hart?”

“I do. What about him?” He tried to sound calm, but on the inside the feelings raged. He crossed his hands behind his back and dug his nails deep into his palms, so she wouldn't see how much he was suddenly shaking.

Michelle smiled; she didn't suspect a thing. “My boy apparently became sick, to only ever get letters from his dear mother. He requested, that I ask you, whether you want to write him and to write about one of your books, so he can think about something else. I didn't wanna ask at first, Mr. Hart, because-”

“No,” he interrupted her, upset, his voice trembling. “I thank you, that you came to me,” he tried to say in a calmer voice. _He didn't forget me._ “Can I … Can I read it?” He nodded at the letter in Michelle's hand. For one second she didn't know how to react. Overthrown by his reaction; Mr. Hart was known as a distanced, almost cool man. Such a behavior was unusual. Suspicious.

“Of course,” she said after a moment of hesitation and handed him the letter.

“I … I need ...” He could feel the paper in his palm. Soft, it had been folded so often, opened and folded again. “I need my reading glasses, Mrs Unwin. Would it be okay if one of the girls returned the letter to you later?”

He had to get away from here. Impossible, that he would be able to read this lines in front of Eggsy's mother. Tears were burning in his eyes already. Only a few seconds more and the would be here and would tell everything, he had been hiding for so long. “Of course, Mr. Hart. Take your time,” Michelle Unwin said with a slightly irritated look on her face. Harry murmured a “Thank you” and stumbled into the house, Eggsy's letter pressed to his heart so firmly, that he could feel his knuckles pressing against his chest, hard and relentless.

Harry leaned back against the closed door, the handle pressing between his rips uncomfortably. His eyes landed on the letter in his hand again and he sank down to the floor in a hasty movement.

_“My dear mother,_

_I wanna thank you for your last letter, which reached me yesterday. I am longing for the day, when I can hold you in my arms again and see, how big little Daisy became. Please give her a kiss from me and tell her that not a single day passes in which I don't think about her._

_We spent the last few days in the trench and the gunfire isn't coming to an end. The cold is nagging at us and I see the wish to survive fading from the faces of my comrades. Not a single day passes without losses. Many young men die in front of our eyes and we are unable to fight against it._

_I saw friends fall and witnessed, how others lost their mind between dirt and corpses. Last night we woke up to a soldier singing. He tore his clothes from his body and left the trench unguarded and singing; for one moment I feared that I was still asleep. The Germans shot him in front of our eyes. The silence had never felt as suffocating as after his death, as the last lines of his song still lingered in the air._

_But I am so sick of reporting about all the misery in the front lines. Tell me about your hours, mother, and let me come to you in my thoughts. I am longing for an escape from this place, in my mind. A good friend wrote me a long time ago, but now only your letters are reaching me. I am fearing that something happened. I can't stand even more sorrow in the place. Please, ask our neighbor, whether he would write to me about his books, he was teaching about once. To have something I can flee into when I close my eyes._

_Your loving son,_

_Eggsy.”_

The only witnesses of his tears were Eggsy's squat, small lines. Harry pressed his hand to his mouth to oppress every sound of crying; nobody should hear him. Nobody should see him being weak. To read, how bad the situation at the front lines was, was worrying him even more than the fact, that all his letters did not find their way to the boy. 

For two hours he was sitting on the floor, crying, before he sat down on his desk and reached for his quill. Every word he wrote down became blurry through all the tears in his eyes, but he didn't stop writing for even a single second. Wrote and wrote, because he couldn't do anything else. Every time the quill scratched over the paper, it was like a touch in the darkness. Every word a cares on Eggsy's naked skin. Every scratch a whisper into the boy's ear, who kissed his cheeks, his fingertips gliding over Harry's spine. 

_“Eggsy,_

_my days consist of letters to you. I wrote to you every single day, I never forgot you. I am fine, you do not have to worry. I would be better, if you were here but I am alive and that thing in my chest keeps beating._

_It is breaking my heart to read, that the war has you in its claws so tightly. If this world was just, it would never show you that side of life. You deserve it to only ever see mortal beauty. If I could, I would absorb all that misery with my own eyes, so you could be forever blind to it.  
I love you. _

_I miss you._

_Every single day you are not with me, is a day I am not living. I can only see reason to sit down on my desk and to write to you. I do not have a picture of you and I have to live with the memory in my heart. But with every passing day your face is fading in front of my eyes. I often think about our last days in the woods. Your kisses left scars on my skin I can not see, but are not leaving my mind. I promised you my heart and my life as we were laying together. I still do. A part of me never left the woods and is still lying there with you; the war, we just dreamed it._

_Please come back to me._

_In eternal love,_

_Harry” ___

He read his message once, twice, before he crumpled it in his hands and took a clean sheet of paper. Harry's fingers cramped as he wrote the first letter. A chaos of ink he didn't correct. “Gary, your mother came to me with your plea, I would like to fulfill,” he started his letter and filled it with empty words of stories of the bronte-sisters and Oscar Wilde. There was no space for expressions of their love, not even in between the line. But he hoped that the boy would read in every single message, every single syllable, what was resting on the tip of Harry's tongue: _I love you. Come back to me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do not forget to leave your kudos, comments and all your love at the original story as well.


	3. Chapter 3

In the following three, maybe four weeks, everything went well. Harry didn't even notice at first how it was destroying him, not being able to say what he really wanted to say. Always having to hold back, as soon as he touched his quill and dark ink seeped slowly into the paper. He had to remember before every single letter, that this on paper, that had been folded with so much love by Eggsy's mother, was no space for dreams, shared memories and a call for love. He struggled, but obliged. Every night he woke from his dreams, drenched in sweat and haunted by the sentences that could never leave his head.

The maids observed with raised eyebrows and suppressed giggling how new life awakened in Harry Hart in the first few days. With the beginning of the war his love for literature had died. The gate to strange worlds and fictional suffering had been closing for him, as the world outside his window had perished. He couldn't stand reading dramas and terrifying stories any longer. One look at the newspaper was enough for that. But Eggsy's plead had awakened something in him. Like the breath that tore free as Harry took the thick, bound books from the shelf for the first time in a long time, freeing them from the dust. He didn't even notice the girl with the brown curls watching him from the corridor; the first sunlight flooding the room in a golden glimmer. Dust was dancing through the air, weightless, whenever Harry Hart reached for a new book, opening it to get a look at the worlds he wanted to tell Eggsy about. 

Michelle Unwin smiled blissfully whenever he appeared at her door and gave her the pages; it didn't take long until his explanations of writings became longer than the lines of the worried mother. She didn't say anything. Harry knew that she didn't suspect anything when he saw the spark in her eyes. He forced himself to return the small smile when she took the filled pages; the nagging wish to confess out loud how much Eggsy means to him always near her – but he couldn't. This time didn't have space for men like him.

Harry was already at the door whenever he recognised the postman in the distance. One week was enough and he was used to not receiving any letters. Nervously and without patience he was pacing downstairs, looking outside every now and then. He was always looking for a better position to see the house of the Unwins better, to see Michelle's reaction to Eggsy's letter. To see when she had read the letter to go outside – coincidentally - and to ask about Eggsy and if he should write him a few lines – coincidentally. He was acting like a school boy, who was buried under his first confusing feelings. Harry cursed quietly to himself whenever he left Michelle Unwin's garden with a letter in his hand and went back to his house. It was embarrassing. Inadequate, to act this way. But it was love. And love was never bad.

The more Harry wrote, the lesser wrote Eggsy. With every day that passed and every letter that arrived his words disappeared on the paper. The untouched became overwhelming. He filled more than one page, for the first time, after Harry had described the Wuthering Heights estate and all the characters of the story. Like a cheeky student Eggsy commented everything Harry had told him in short sentences. Heathcliff was an “idiot, a rather big one”, Eggsy wrote in his first answer. “I have the suspicion that he no longer lives in Wuthering Heights, but here. To slay or shoot him wouldn't do anything. Will he come back then and haunt us all like Cathy's ghost and drive us into insanity?” In every sentence Harry could see his cheeky grin on Eggsy's face, like he was standing before him. Untouched by war, still the boy that would confront him without hesitation.

But then the answers became shorter with every letter. The lines to Harry. And he felt how he was threatened to lose the boy a second time. He turned Eggsy's letter over, again and again, but he was searching for the silly comments in vain. The young soldier only voiced his thankfulness to Mr Hart in the next letter. A line, cold as a blade, that was twisting between his shoulder blades. “Dear mother, tell Mr. Hart how thankful I am.” That was it. The day Eggsy's letters were only a message to his mother, from beginning to end - no thanking, no asking for Harry's words – Harry knew he had lost.

_“Please tell Mr. Hart that his lines are no longer needed.” ___

The servants flinched when they heard him scream. The sound of an animal, suffering in pain. They ran inside, following the noise – porcelain breaking, pots clashing – but the door to the kitchen was locked. Only the girl with the brown curls pressed the palm of her hand against the door and pleaded Harry to open the door. “No,” he screamed. “Get lost! Go to hell!” Nobody should see him like this.

They found the kitchen in ruins the next morning; Harry Hart was laying in bed and didn't say a single word. He looked like he hadn't moved at all when the maid returned in the evening. But she noticed the fire that he had started in the fireplace. And the crackling flames that were devouring everything they could reach: Dickens and Doyle and Wells. The bronte-sisters. Poe. Elliot.

He didn't leave his room for three days and the girls avoided him. He caught glimpses of the brown curls when he wearily opened his eyes when he heard her carry the bucket, he did his business in, out of the room. He cried again, because he was ashamed. How did this boy manage to destroy him so easily? “He cursed me, oh god, he cursed me,” Harry wept, as he felt the soft hands of the maid on his forehead, how she was pushing his hair back. She didn't speak. Not even when he sobbed and cried “I am such a fool, why do I love him” out. He swallowed, jaw clenched tightly, and buried his face in her lap like a child; the scent of soap and warm potatoes on her apron gave him a sense of security. Her fingers were still slipping through Harry's dark curls as he fell asleep. His hands balled in fists.

Harry had stopped writing Eggsy personally on the day the boy had sought his contact through his mother. He still didn't know where all the letters, the love declarations and shared memories had gone. It was impossible that they were all lost. No matter how often Harry let that possibility play out in his head, he couldn't accept it. One last letter. He had to write one last letter to Eggsy. Not through his mother, not wrapped in cold, distant words about dead writers.

“You are writing again?,” the girl with the curls asked as she changed his sheets. He didn't look at her, his gaze solely focusing on the empty sheet.

“One last time,” he said quietly.

For one moment she was quiet. He heard how she stopped her busy work and the room became silent. “Then say everything you haven't said,” she advised him, leaving the room with quiet steps, closing the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. I am so so so sorry. I know that I am probably the worst translator ever. There is no excuse for it. I just wanna give you the reasons for the major (it's gigantic, let's face it) delay;
> 
> I have a weakness for doing too much at the same time, as you may have notice.  
> School work completely took me by suprise and overwhelmed me, because I was not excpecting THAT much.  
> And I have been struggling with mental health issues for quite some time now.
> 
> I know that those are no excuses, I just wanted to be honest with you guys. I have a short break now though (thank god for fall break!) and I will try my best to catch up with my writing.


	4. Chapter 4

_Eggsy,_

_I often told you that half my heart went to the front lines with you. I tried to live with what you left inside my chest for a long time. But that was no life. Now I know that every day I was only waiting. Waiting to finally be whole again. Sometimes I lay awake, listening to my beating heart. A dream, perhaps. Or the echo of the bombs lulling you to sleep._

_I tried to get used to the thought of you never returning to me on the day you left. But I wasn't able to. I tried to get used to the thought of you having forgotten me on the day you didn't answer any of my letters. But I couldn't. Now I am trying to accept that I do not have a place in your life. And you can see me fail a third time._

_Do you remember the first time we spoke? There were many words in the years prior to that, yes. Fleeting words, a few polite necessities. But we were never really aware of each other, as if we were just blurred forms in the other's dream. You caught me in the forest as I tried to shoot a rabbit. Contrary to you I was never good with a gun. I heard your laughter as another shot ran through the forest, but only hit a tree. For one moment I had considered chasing you away, like I chased away all the other people in my life. But as you came closer, your hands raised and when you started grinning, I saw a warmth in your eyes that was dedicated just to me. Even now, as I should hate and curse you, I am sitting here and I am longing for that look. You really did curse me, Eggsy Unwin. Without you I am no longer myself._

_We did not admit to ourselves that there was more than just the beginning of a friendship. Nobody thought of something bad when we took the guns into the woods in the morning. Not even when we returned every afternoon without any prey. I had to endure the mocking comments of the maids, who could only laugh about our hunting skills. We didn't even try, that is the only truth. The very first day we went into the forest together, we wandered through the woods without saying a single word. Until you finally saw a stag. The most beautiful animal I had ever seen. Majestic and strong._

_Before I could rise my gun and aim at the stag, your hands were suddenly on my shoulders. I could feel your thumb, pressing against the exposed skin where my collar had shifted. With the effortless strength of a young man you pressed me down and the gun against the earth. You weren't even looking at me, Eggsy. “Just watch,” you whispered and soundlessly pointed your hand in the direction of the animal. And I saw it. I admired it. I saw what you had seen. And with your right hand still on my shoulder, your breath scraping lightly over my cheek, I knew, that we had found something in this forest we had never searched for._

_Our first kiss was like a fight. I could feel your teeth under the thin lips, as if they were as thin as paper. I had been mistaken. From the moment you responded to my kiss, your strength and passion scared me. I loved it. A few seconds, lips on lips, and then I felt your fist against my ribcage and you distanced yourself. Still breathing heavily and with a bright red head, you cursed and insulted me. You called me a “abominable pervert”, but none of your words truly affected me. Because I felt it. The same longing that was hunting me every second._

_It was no love that urged us into the forest. It was no love that made us reckless and wild, until we neglected our clothes and indulged in this sin. I know you would correct me at this point, but it is the truth. It was no love, only lust._

_But the love came and swiped me off my feet, turned everything over I ever believed in. I fell in love with you on all those evenings, when you were sitting in my kitchen and imposed the maids with your crass stories. They all fell completely in love with you, but you only had eyes for me. I know I fell in love with you the day your were sick and the fever brought you nearer to death. I accompanied one of the maids under pretense as she went to your mother to bring her soup for you. You looked like death himself, Eggsy, pale and thin and feverish. You did not complain, even though you would have had every reason to. You gathered your strength, looked at me and made me promise to take care of your mother and of Daisy in case you should die. You did not want any aid for yourself. Not a single syllable. I fell in love with you in that moment. Another time._

_The weaker I was, the stronger you were. Since you left I often remember this afternoon. When you allowed me to see how fragile you truly are. In that moment, when we laid together in the forest for the first time. Your reddened cheeks, the sweat on your temple. You looked at me, your lips parted and your lashes fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. It was the first time I saw how fragile you were, afar from all the weight and responsibility on your shoulders, as you could shed what you were pretending to be. I fell in love with you, in that moment in the forest. Another time._

_There was a day during the summer, when one of my maids was so careless in the garden, that she spilled my inkpot and destroyed a student's essay. My screams and clamouring drew you in. As I raised my hand to punish that poor thing, your fingers dug into my wrist and you stopped me. I screamed at both of you that summer day and I know your mother slapped you for your behaviour. I could never tell you how deeply I fell in love with you in that moment. You stopped me from being a monster._

_I cannot prevent the war from turning you into a monster, to help you to survive in this times. Please never forget these words, Eggsy: You are no monster. Under all that blood and dirt you are still the boy that filled the woods with laughter. Come back and I am here. Every night I will hold you and dry every tear and overcome every nightmare with you. Neither heaven nor hell will be able to tear me from your side, if you do not command it. I promise you this._

_This letter perhaps never reaches your eyes, but the message shall sound over all the battle fields. I love you, Eggsy. Come back to me._

_Forever yours,_  
_Harry._

Harry laid the quill down and took a deep breath. As his gaze slid out of the window, he saw the sun setting. With shaking hands he raised the letter and read the lines again. The light painted the paper bloodred. An omen he was blind for.


	5. Chapter 5

One week passed in which Harry's gazing out of the window was fruitless. He paced through the house restlessly, threw himself into the housework just to feel the smallest changes in his days. No letter for him. No letter for Michelle Unwin.

“I know I wish everyday for someone to ride their rusty bikes to our front yard and to deliver a message for us”, he said in the evening, as the maid with the curls was closing the curtains. “But a part of me is praying to god that it doesn't happen. A letter can be a sign of life, but also a death sentence. If you wish for a message, it does not lay in your hands what you'll receive.” He rubbed his eyes as if he wanted to chase the lie, that he was clinging to, away. That he wanted to believe. That wasn't strong enough to keep him from turning his head to the horizon and wait for a sign from the mail man everyday.

As the second week began, there was an electrifying happiness in the house. Even Harry got caught up in it, even though there wasn't a single second in which he didn't think about Eggsy. It helped him forget for a few hours that he wasn't happy. The world wasn't grey. There was still happiness. And they were happy tears – pure and in their most beautiful form – that welled up in the eyes of the maid with the curls, when they heard the gravel in front of the house crunch. Not a single one of the maids was able to form a word; a collective, hysteric laughing erupted in the kitchen that made Harry theatrically press his hands to his ears to read his newspaper in peace. But he still allowed himself to be affected by this fluttering feeling, that was painting a smile on his lips, in secret. The women hurried out of the kitchen, still chatting, leaving him alone for the moment. The noise in the corridor stayed. 

He wasn't mad that he couldn't concentrate on a single word. Because as he turned the page, the names of the fallen soldiers, pressed tightly together, appeared. There were so many that the page seemed to be dipped in black ink at the first hurried glance. Hundreds of boys that would never come back home.   
U... Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and hovered over the list. Unw... His fingertips brushed over the page of the newspaper and he scratched lightly at every name with U, that didn't end with Unwin, Gary. Harry tried to lock every kind of emotion inside of him, as long as he hadn't reached the end of the list. In vain. The fear had already come, together with the newspaper, into the house. Had announced it its new home on the day Eggsy had gone to war. There hasn't been a day without its presence since then, whenever Harry unfolded the newspaper in the kitchen. Unwi...

“Mr. Hart!” The door was pushed open with a loud bang, the handle colliding with the wall on the other side. A giggled “sorry” followed and the planks groaned under the weight, as the kitchen filled with people again. “Mr. Hart, look who is here!”

Unwi...

The steps came closer, but Harry's gaze was still examining the list. Even with his glasses it still cost him his whole concentration to decipher the names. The shoulders tight, the lips just a thin line on his face. His cheekbones were prominent under his pale skin, that was wearing the marks of sleepless nights. Somebody said his name again and he was close to ushering everyone out of the room, so he could read in peace. Did they no understand what he was going through? That he needed certainty?

Until he suddenly spotted a brown soldier uniform in the corner of his eye. Harry froze. Eggsy appeared in his mind, smiling and with eyes sparkling of mischief. This cheeky young man he wanted to protect from the world. With a stack of letters in his hands, all of them carrying Harry's name. Eggsy's face was burned into Harry's irides, still not fading as he turned his head to the side and stared at the soldier in his kitchen. His heart missed a beat, his pupils dilating. Harry blinked and Eggsy disappeared. Faded like a dream in the first rays of sunlight, leaving a tall, sturdy bloke, who had come to standing stiffly in front of the table.

The maid was gripping onto his arm and for the first time in weeks she was blinded by all of the bliss. She didn't see how deep the cut went, how badly the scene hurt Harry Hart. Because he was still waiting. “I told you he would come home”, she said, flashing her little teeth as a big grin overtook her features. “My Tommy”, she said and pressed closer to him. The boy in the uniform was no stranger. But back then, when he was lingering in Harry's garden one night for the first time, meeting with the maid in secret, he had not been a soldier yet. Untouched by the war, like Eggsy. A long time ago.

“Tommy”, Harry said. Murmuring. Jittery movements, as he stood up and offered the boy his hand. “Good to see that you are well.”

“I have to thank you, Mr. Hart, for allowing me to stay here for a few days”, Tommy said, a bit stiff with nerves.

Harry couldn't remember giving the girl his permission, but maybe she had asked him in an inconvenient situation. He did not know. “View it as my gift to the bridal couple.” He forced himself to smile. Now the time had come to let go of his fear for a moment to grant this two the last happiness on earth: Love.

“Thank you”, the young couple spoke almost simultaneously and turned their heads, smiling at each other like they were seeing each other for the first time in years. Harry saw how they wanted to touch and be near each other. Shoulder pressed to shoulder, hands linked.

“Well, Tommy, perhaps you would like to rest?” He was having trouble to think clearly. The newspaper was still close, drawing him closer like a black hole, deeper into feeling unwell. And the brown of the uniform. This colour. This stature. Like a mistake had happened. Like life had been wrong and sent the wrong man home. And he knew that it was cruel, but he wished Tommy had never come home and it was Eggsy taking his place.

“Very much”, Tommy answered and squared his shoulders unconciously, like he had received an official order. A posture he hadn't possessed as an adolescent in Harry's garden. An adolescent – he still was. But the war had taken his weightlessness.

The girl with the curls let her gaze flit from Harry to her fiance, smiling, before she said:”I will prepare the room for you.” A whisper, followed by a small kiss to the cheek, before she stepped over to the door with soft steps. She stopped with the hand on the handle of the door, looking back, right before she left the room. Harry watched her, slightly irritated, as she smiled a soft smile, that wasn't just meant for Tommy, but also for him:”He isn't in it.” The only words. She nodded at the table. “He is not in it”, she said again and when Harry finally understood – the paper, the list of the fallen soldiers – she was already gone and her fast steps sounded through the ground floor.

Harry forgot Tommy's presence for one moment. He leaned back in his chair, his tension disappearing, and sighed. Sighed loudly and wholeheartedly, while he laid his palms onto the printed pages and calmed. Until he remembered his visitor, who had sat down on his opposite. And the serious expression on his face. So different from the man he had been just seconds ago. The overjoyed fiance, who had come home from the front lines, was gone. Tommy's gaze was piercing and as he opened his mouth and suddenly talked about him, Harry felt his heart stop for a moment.

“Have you recently received letters from Eggsy?”, Tommy asked. Something in his voice pressed voice made Harry restless.

“Gary?”, he asked, because he knew that only his closest friends called him. “Gary Unwin? The boy next door?” His heart was beating so fast and so loud, he was afraid it would betray his cluelessness. “He never wrote me personally”, he said. Lie. The word flashed through his mind. “But I think his mother has recently received a letter. I am unsure.” That was true. He had given up on asking Mrs. Unwin to read letters that weren't meant for him.

“No, I mean, if you have received any letters.” Tommy was kneading his hat between his hands.

Harry barked an irritated laugh. “Tommy, I already told-”

Fast, cutting and quiet:”I know of it.” He leaned closer over the table, as if a conspiracy was about to begin at any moment. Harry continued to act innocent.

“Of what?”

“Of”, Tommy hesitated. “of you two.” He was evidently bothered. “I know about the letters.”

“Did he-”

“No, no”, Tommy said, shaking his head heavily, “He never showed them to me. He didn't show them to anybody. Well.” He stopped, but the high tone of his voice had already let Harry know that something wasn't right. “Not voluntarily”, he said, the hat between his fingers. “But they were caught by the censorship. I witnessed that.”

“I don't think I understand what you are trying to tell me, Tommy. These were just letters from his mother, in which I told him about a few novels. I don't know what would be so incriminating that it awakened the interest of the censorship.” He tried to hold as still as possible, but when he took his glasses off, his hands shook.

“Not those letters”, stressed Tommy and his big ears turned red. He didn't want to say it. This word. Tried to find a way around it. “The private letters.”

“Tommy, I am terribly sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about. One wrong word and Tommy could, for whatever reason, report him and Harry Hart would spend his life behind bars. Or he would perish because of his stigma, which would make him an ostracized. If the boy should want to blackmail him, he wouldn't make it easy for him and let himself be caught. But he cursed himself for having trusted the maid in his grief. Maybe she was also involved and the two had planned to take his last money and run away. He didn't think she would be capable of it, he trusted her too much. But the war had turned many saints into monsters.

“You – You don't have to – I mean, I don't – I'm not – I...” He closed his mouth. “I am not judging you.”

“I don't know what you could judge”, Harry said and started folding the paper to keep his hands occupied and to fill the deafening silence. 

 

“No, please-“

Harry cut him off:”Tommy, I have already told you, that I have no idea which letters you are talking about.” 

“No, please, Mr. Hart. You have to listen to me”, the joung soldier said, his voice trembling. “You cannot write to him any longer. The letters were caught by the censorship and there is an investigation against Eggsy.” 

“What-“, A word, he couldn’t bring more over his lips. Harry had frozen in the middle of his movement, the paper still between his palms. His eyes were still on Tommy, his only connection to the boy. This stupid boy, who had gone to war. “An investigation”, he said after a pause. He laid the newspaper back down on the table and reached for his glasses.   
His fingertips reached for the frame and slowly, moving mechanically, pulled them off the bridge of his nose. Harry didn’t put them down. He kept them in his right hand and covered them with his fingers. Felt the cold material, which was nestling against his skin and cracking quietly.   
   
He flet how he started to break. Inside. Part after part. “An investigation.” He said it again. Differently this time. Heavier. Because he was beginning to understand. The silence of the boy. His indirect pleas,  Harry shouldn’t write him any longer. Eggsy had looked at the end of his military career and sent a scream for help home. A plea, to avoid the worst that could happen to him, besides death. Wrapped in words, Harry hadn’t been able to understand. That were only a sign of being forgotten to him. He had read them so often, but he had never thought about why the boy had written them. He had only thought of himself. The old man, who hadn’t gone to war and was now being forgotten.    
   
Eggsy had asked him not to send any more letters. And he had sent him a confession and an ocean of memories, which could sent him straight to jail. Which would end it all.   
   
A fear was closing off his throat, making even the littlest intake of breath hurt. “An investigation.” Breathless whispering. He let his head fall back and gasped for air.   
   
“Mr. Hart?” Tommy was on his feet, even before Harry could blindly reach for the soldier. “Mr. Hart, is everything okay?”   
   
No.   
   
“Are you well?” The soldier’s voice was worried and high. He felt, how strong hands dug into his arms – he couldn’t remember standing up, but Tommy was suddenly at his side, holding him up. He was shouting for his fiance – Helena; he had always called her “the girl”, his  curly-haired girl – and before Harry finally fell to the ground, evyerthing turning black and the world’s colours fading.    
 

**Author's Note:**

> The original fic is by the lovely Brona, [ Her tumblr is over here :) ](http://miss-bronte.tumblr.com//)  
> [ You can find me on Tumblr :) ](http://sweetpeaalena.tumblr.com/)  
> [ And over here is my side blog for all the ships I ship ](http://sterekruinedme.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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